With a Little Bit of Luck
by ColorsAndVoices
Summary: Six months after the incident at Bad Wolf Bay, Rose has given in and returned to the last place she saw the Doctor. She doesn't expect to find much, but things don't always go as expected.
1. Return to Bad Wolf Bay

AN: Finally back from a bit of a hiatus and I hope to start writing once more. Despite the long-anticipated reunion that we should see on screen in the near future, this is my addition to the number of reunion!fics out there. It should work out as a story of several chapters, though I'm not yet sure how many.

This is an addition to my _Bad Wolf Chronicles_. A proper list of other pieces in this series can be found on my profile.

This one is for totally.doctor.who for the many awesome reviews. Thanks!

Sorry for the long note and I hope you all like the story. - AutumnxAngel

Disclaimer: Yeah, I wish I owned it. Unfortunately, I don't.

* * *

It had been six months since her life had shattered. Six months since fate had stranded her here, in this universe, away from her Doctor.

Rose Tyler drove down the long, empty roads of Norway, tears streaming down her face unheeded.

Six months was a long time. Between their separation and his departure from the bay, she had been so hopeful, praying to a god she didn't believe in that he would find a way back to her. Since she'd been to the bay, her hope had gone. He wasn't going to come back for her. He had said so.

He wouldn't risk the universe.

She had not cried since his departure, but now sobs tore through her chest, ripping from her soul out through her lungs. She had all the windows in the car down as far as they went in defiance of the freezing wind that whipped over her face and through her hair. Her tears were met by the frigid early-morning air and swept from her face.

Six months was a long time. She had thrown herself into life. She was determined to go on. He had told her to live a fantastic life and she would. For him, if for nothing else.

Besides, truth be told, it didn't hurt so much when she was busy. She had gone into Torchwood, taken on any extra responsibilities she could find, done anything to keep herself from having time to think. If she thought, it would be only of him.

She drove the car onto the beach, much as her father had last time she was there. The sky overhead was gray and a little bit angry. The water was choppier than it had been last time, crashing into the shore with a determined intensity. The sound washed through her mind, numbing her to the constant ache of loss.

Six months was a long time. Under the waves of grief wracking her body, she didn't know how she had survived it. She wasn't sure how she would continue to survive after this trip.

She pushed the door closed behind her, slamming it slightly harder than necessary.

Swiping her arm over her face, she dried the latest tears and actually focused on her surroundings for the first time. Her gaze skipped over much of the land, interested in only one place: the one where she had seen him last.

Her eyes came to rest on an unexpected sight.

There was a girl sitting exactly where his feet had stood. She was sitting cross legged, one hand drawing figures in the wet sand beside her, her blond, shoulder length hair dancing in the wind.

Rose frowned, anger joining her sorrow. This was her place. Hers and his. This was sacred and someone else had intruded. She walked forward, not sure what she would say, just wanting the girl gone.

As she approached, the girl looked up, a sort of innocent surprise flickering over her features. She blinked before making eye contact, and Rose realized she wasn't truly some little girl. Her eyes were far too knowing and far too powerful to be those of a human girl; the light that shone behind them was far too familiar for some stranger.

The girl, or whatever she was, smiled up at Rose and thumped her palm on the ground in invitation. Not even considering what she was doing, Rose obeyed, uncaring of the fact that the sand would stick, or that its wetness would seep straight through her clothes. She settled herself cross-legged, half-facing the girl, half-facing the water.

"Who are you?" Her voice was shakier than she liked, belying her now-calm face. She was looking at the ocean, but the girl understood that the question was aimed at her.

"You really don't know?" The young voice sounded slightly surprised. "I assumed you would know me by my eyes. They usually give me away." Her gaze was intent on Rose, who looked back; though she was no longer sure she wanted to know the answer to her question.

Their eyes met and held for a long moment. Rose studied the familiar light behind the girl's eyes, her mind grasping for what made it so familiar. When her grief-hazed mind finally gave her an answer, her breath hitched and she inhaled sharply, immediately attempting to deny it. The recognition brought back far too many hopes and memories she had spent so much effort to suppress.

The girl nodded. "I thought so. You did, after all, help to create me." Her head was tipped to the side, her expression lost somewhere between innocence and intensity.

"Bad Wolf." Rose breathed the words. "But you can't be real." Her voice was raised slightly in denial. "You fell out of existence when I let go…." Memories of the incident on Satellite Five resurfaced, playing out behind her eyes, bits of darkness smeared across the gray of the beach.

"No." The girl reached out and took her hand, making Rose jump slightly at the feel of her warm and very-real skin. "It is a very long story, one that I may share someday, but for today we do not have time." She tugged on the hand she held, bringing Rose's focus back to her words. "I only have an hour more, and I can only return about once for every one of your lunar cycles. I've been waiting for you to come back to this place for the last two months. There is so much to speak of before I must go."

"But…" Rose shook her head and pulled her hand from the Bad Wolf's. "I don't understand. How are you here? The Doctor said he was closing the gaps. He said there couldn't be any more travel between universes."

"He did. And for all he knew, that was the absolute truth." The Bad Wolf raised her hands in a placating motion. "Things change though. I hold enough of the Vortex within me to be able to transcend certain rules." She smiled. "And, after the way he felt after you got separated, the least I could do was search for a way back through. It took me some time, but I think I have the key. It will take a lot of work, and most likely it will be at least a year for you, but I believe I can get you back to your universe."

The Bad Wolf sat there, looking entirely like an innocent young girl, though Rose knew she was capable of so much more, and promised a way back to the Doctor, back to home.

Rose swallowed hard, trying desperately not to let her hopes rise. "Are you serious?" She asked, feeling that desperate emotion rise in her chest despite her efforts. "You can get me back to the Doctor?"

The Bad Wolf nodded.

Rose covered her face with her hands, feeling the tears well in her eyes and begin to stream down her face. Only this time they were not tears of sorrow, but tears of joy for the impossible.

* * *

The Bad Wolf stood and Rose did the same.

For almost an hour, the Bad Wolf had described her plans to Rose. According to her, the universes were constantly in motion. Universes like the two Rose was familiar with could be so similar because certain events passed from one into the other. This seemed to be the key.

The Bad Wolf was going to use a shared event to pull Rose back to her own universe.

"How long did you say this'd take?" Rose could feel the old sense of adventure running through her veins like a drug. It made her realize just how shallow many of her feelings for Torchwood had been.

The Bad Wolf sighed and touched her shoulder in sympathy. "It is going to take some time." Rose's excitement dimmed slightly, and the Bad Wolf noticed. "I am sorry, but it cannot be helped. I have not yet worked out all the details in our universe, and I will require you to do some things here as well." Rose nodded.

"Return here each month that you can. I cannot leave this beach because I am using residual traces from the Doctor's connection, but I will be here on this day exactly every month that it is possible. If you are able to, come in the morning, for my movement is not precise enough for me to be here any specific hour and I would like to maximize the time we have to speak." Her gaze was intent on Rose as she attempted to stress the importance of their speaking as much as possible.

"Okay." Rose nodded. She was still slightly delirious from the rush that came with doing the impossible. "Will I be able to see the Doctor?"

The Bad Wolf shook her head. "He cannot come through without creating a fracture." She blushed slightly, something that shocked Rose, who had not believed her capable of such a human reaction. "I actually have not told him that I am doing this. I do not want him to get involved. This cannot be accomplished quickly, and I fear that he may try to rush things." She looked as though she expected Rose to be angry, but the young woman only sighed.

"Yeah. I know 'im." She laughed slightly, remembering vividly the Doctor's ability to get in trouble. "How 'bout we make it a surprise then?"

The Bad Wolf grinned and offered her hand, which Rose took. "It is a deal." Her attention seemed to be caught by something and she stepped away. "I have to go. Remember: one month."

Her form wavered, and Rose squinted against the bright silhouette that replaced the girl. The sound of Time echoed briefly across the bay before being swept away by the wind, and the Bad Wolf was gone. There was not so much as a footprint where she had stood.

Rose looked around her for a moment before starting back for her vehicle, reflecting on just how much more she had gained from this trip than she had ever anticipated. Mentally, she examined the hole in her being that had been made in the Doctor's absence, finding it still tender, but bearable now that it had some hope to begin healing it.

_One month_, she thought, and wished that it was not such a terribly long time.

* * *

AN: Well? Is it worth going on? I'd love to hear what people thought. (And yes, that is a not-so-subtle hint that I'm a sucker for reviews. ;) )


	2. The Bad Wolf's Tale

AN: Second part up. Hope it's not too confusing…

To all the people who thought this was worth continuing.

Enjoy. -AutumnxAngel

Disclaimer: Same as ever. Not mine.

* * *

Rose moved onto the beach carefully, mindful of the rocks she had been working her way across. Slipping down the last few steps to the sand, she wondered once more what had inspired her to walk onto the beach rather than drive as she had a month ago. Her feet sank into the sand slightly as she started across the bay. She could see the Bad Wolf standing some distance across the sand, staring out at the relatively calm water.

The first thing Rose noticed as she neared the Bad Wolf was her appearance. Where a month ago she had looked like a mere child, she now appeared to be a woman in her late teens. She wore boys clothes, slightly too large for her, and her feet were bare. Rose suspected she must have some slight immunity to the cold, much like the Doctor had, to be able to stand the chill weather so easily.

When Rose was near enough to hear her easily, the Bad Wolf turned from away from the water. "I am glad you could arrive so soon. I have only been here a very short while."

"Yeah." Rose stood beside her now, her voice distracted, and a look of slight confusion on her face. "You look so much older than you did last time. Is there that big a difference between the time here and the time there?"

The Bad Wolf shook her head. "There is some difference, but nothing so dramatic." She smiled. "My appearance changes as I will it. Technically speaking, I do not possess a corporeal body, so I create my own. Also," her smile turned into an outright grin. "when you have the Vortex running through your head, it is not so difficult to alter the physical to suit your will."

"Ah." Rose could briefly remember a golden light. Power. Then the memory was gone.

The Bad Wolf was about to speak again, but hesitated, looking intently at Rose, and giving the impression that she could see straight into her soul. She sighed slightly and inclined her head. "You have questions."

Rose laughed a little. "Yeah, just a few. You show up here, and I barely even know how you exist, let alone how you got here…." She shook her head. Speaking the words out loud, she realized just how odd the situation was. "I mean, I have absolutely no proof that any of this is even true….It's just…..There was no hope for so long, but I looked at your eyes and believed everything you said." She bit her lower lip, her eyes on the sand. "You'd think I'd of learned something from Torchwood, but here I am, just as trusting as I used to be."

Her smile was a little bitter now. "I'll do just about anything if it gives me hope to see the Doctor."

There was understanding in the Bad Wolf's face and voice. "Stop. I know this is strange, but since when is anything involving the Doctor _not_ strange." She put a hand on Rose's shoulder and nodded toward some smooth, dry rocks at the near end of the beach. "Come and sit and I will answer any of your questions. There is nothing vital to be done today, and we have a good deal more time than we did before. Let me see if I can give you some better reasons to trust."

Rose took a deep breath, trying to calm her swirling emotions. Since her last trip to the bay, she had suppressed most of what she was feeling, hiding the latest turmoil from her coworkers, parents, and Mickey. Now, all of the feelings that had resurfaced along with her hope were threatening to choke her. She let the Bad Wolf lead her to the rocks, where they sat side by side.

The Bad Wolf rubbed Rose's back in comfort, her voice soft. "Whatever you want to ask, I will do my best to answer. Any questions that will help put your mind at ease." She smiled gently, encouragingly. "After all, you had best be sure about this, and I will need your trust if we are going to pull it off."

Rose nodded, focusing on the here and now and getting the answers she needed. "Okay then." She turned to look the Bad Wolf in the eye. "How do you even exist?"

The Bad Wolf chewed her top lip, considering. "That one might be easier if I show you." She held up her hands and gestured to Rose's temples. "May I?"

Rose looked at her for a moment, then nodded, again noticing how much trust she put in this being she didn't even know.

Then she had no more time to consider, as the Bad Wolf placed surprisingly warm fingers against her temples, and everything faded away.

* * *

Rose stood in a large, dark room. There were figures moving about it, and voices, though everything was sort of blurred. Slowly, everything came into focus; the control room on Satellite Five with its rows of monitors, the face of the Dalek god filling the central screen, Daleks pouring into the room, and the Doctor standing next to his delta wave machine.

"This is Satellite Five. Two hundred thousand years into this place's past, you are breaking open the TARDIS, in a last, desperate bid to save the alien who has come to mean the world to you." The Bad Wolf stood beside her. They were at the edge of the room, with a perfect view of all that was going on, yet somehow separate from it all. "Your memories of what is about to happen have been taken from you. The things you experienced are things no human should ever know, so I stole all of the knowledge. These moments do not even exist for you. There is only an echo; that vague recollection of music, of golden light, that is all you will ever have of your own experience here."

Rose looked on in slight horror, knowing the outcome of what she was apparently about to see, and fearing it nonetheless. "That's why I couldn't remember anything." She glanced at the Bad Wolf, who was watching her intently. "I had to make the Doctor tell me about what happened. He didn't want to talk about it. Kept on sayin it didn't really matter, that the Daleks had been beat, and that was all that was important."

"It nearly killed him to see you burning with the Vortex. He was certain it would kill you." The Bad Wolf's gaze was sharp. "He had nightmares about it afterward." Rose's breath hitched and she swallowed hard.

The Bad Wolf looked back at what was going on, and Rose did the same.

The Daleks had filled the room now, surrounding the Doctor, preventing any thought of escape.

She could hear the god's taunts;_ 'What are you: coward or killer?' _She could see the indecision and pain written across the familiar face of her first Doctor, the Ninth Doctor. His answer made her want to cry;_ 'Coward. Any day.' _Here he was, her Doctor, willing to let the Daleks kill him and ransack the Universe just so some humans could survive a little while longer_._

She watched the scene play out, torn between pride in her Doctor, and fear for him, even knowing how things would end. She heard the roar of the TARDIS engines, could remember the Doctor, the other Doctor, telling her about what had happened next.

She watched the doors open, and saw the golden light set her before the Doctor.Her words, words she was unfamiliar with….

'_I looked into the Tardis, and the Tardis looked into me.' 'You looked into the Time Vortex. Rose, no one's meant to do that!'_

The Bad Wolf was whispering rapidly in her ear, explaining what was happening. "When you took in the Vortex, I used the door it created to enter your mind. The raw power of the Vortex would have killed you within the minute, so I followed to protect you."

Rose watched in awe as her younger self blocked the Dalek ray.

"Time rewritten. It is as though you pressed rewind." Rose was only half listening to what the Bad Wolf was saying.

'_I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself.'_

"My words through you. The words that created me." The Bad Wolf's speech was rapid, but Rose realized she was hearing every word perfectly; the benefit of being in a memory perhaps.

'_I take the words, I scatter them, in Time and Space. A message to lead myself here.'_

"My orders. After all, I would not exist if you did not come to this point."

Rose watched the glow of the Vortex fade from the eyes of the younger her, listened closely to the words.

'_I want you safe. My Doctor.'_

"Those words were your own. Your love for him shining brightly even then."

'_I can see the whole of Time and Space. Every single atom of your existence, and I divide them.'_

"I controlled the energy, and you used it. Saved our Doctor, put an end to the Time War. Played them forward through their own timelines until they were dust."

The Daleks were disintegrating; returning to the golden dust of the Vortex.

'_Rose you've done it, now stop. Just let go.' 'How can I let go of this? I bring life.'_

Rose frowned. "I held on…why did I hold on?"

"You were hardly able to control yourself anymore. You had all the power of Time in your head. How could you resist trying to help a friend?" There was no accusation in the Bad Wolf's voice, only understanding. "You brought back the Captain."

'_But why do they hurt?' _

"I was losing by now. You were starting to feel the whole of the universe. It was starting to sink into your mind."

'_Come here. I think you need a Doctor.'_

"So he did the only thing he could. He took it from you, knowing he would regenerate. Hoping like mad that you would understand and stay with him. Hoping like mad that he would still feel as he did about you afterward." The Bad Wolf was watching Rose again as the girl watched the Doctor kiss her younger self.

"He kissed me….." There were tears in Rose's eyes, but she had a look of wonder on her face. "Never told me that."

There was golden light pouring from her younger self into the Doctor.

"I protected you as best I could, and when he took the Vortex from you I went also, removing every trace of memory I could find." The Bad Wolf's tone was matter-of-fact. She was not sorry for taking away the memories. It had been for the best. Rose tried to feel upset at the invasion, but couldn't. She understood why it had been done.

As golden Vortex flowed back into the TARDIS, the memory got slowly brighter, until there was only white.

* * *

Rose looked upon Bad Wolf Bay once more.

She brushed away the tracks that her tears had left down her face and breathed the cool, salty air. The Bad Wolf sat next to her in silence, waiting for some reaction.

"I think I get what you just showed me." Rose swung to face her companion. "But how does that explain your existence?"

"You remember the words 'I create myself'?" The Bad Wolf leaned back on her palms, eyes on Rose, who nodded affirmative. "When I said that, I meant it quite literally. I took the power you held and used it to break off a part of me. I cast that part across the void and into another universe, where I was certain that it would be safe from the Time War." She looked at Rose for comprehension.

"Okay…" Rose waited for the rest of the story.

"At the fall of Gallifrey, the Doctor and his Tardis survived. Both, however, were brutalized by the forces that were at work. When the planet burned, the ship rode the shockwave across the Void, where that piece of me joined with what was left of the soul of the Tardis." The Bad Wolf's voice was sad with the memory of Gallifrey's destruction; something she had inherited upon joining what had been the Tardis. She didn't mind sharing her origins though. She had offered answers, and that was what she intended to give. "Between the first and second ends to the Time War, my existence was that of a self-fulfilling paradox. I was only in existence because at some point in my future, that moment on Satellite Five, I would send back a part of me to become myself."

Rose made a face, working through the logic. She nodded slowly. "So, that's why you're still here? You weren't made when I looked into the Vortex, you were already there. So when I let go, you didn't leave with it……" She rubbed her temple. "You'd think I might be used to time travel stuff by now."

The Bad Wolf chuckled. "Oh, you never truly get used to it. That would take away the fun." Rose smiled. "Have you any more questions? We still have some minutes."

Rose considered. "I think that might of answered more than one. I mean, I was gonna ask who you were to the Doctor, but apparently you're the soul of his TARDIS………" She trailed off, eyes widening slightly. "Does this mean that all those times the Tardis prepared somethin just for me, like food an clothes an stuff…..that was you?"

The Bad Wolf laughed. "Did you like the things I gave you?"

"Yeah." Rose was grinning now, the melancholy of earlier, and the remembered sadness of the Ninth Doctor's regeneration replaced by calm once more. "No wonder I trust you…..I lived with you for months!"

The Bad Wolf nodded. "Yes you did." Her eyes unfocused for a moment, before coming back to Rose. "Any more questions? I must go soon."

"Well, only about how you got here, but it's not important. I'm pretty sure we'll be talking about travel between here and the other universe a lot the next few times I see you." She thought for a moment. "Anything else is sort of solved by knowing who you are and knowing I can trust you."

"We will speak of how I came here," The Bad Wolf stood. "and I am glad you can trust me once more. It will be necessary later on in our work." She blinked rapidly a few times, a distracted look coming over her face. "You will be here next month?"

Rose nodded. "Wouldn't miss it."

The Bad Wolf waved slightly as light began to seep out of her. Rose closed her eyes against the brilliance, and when she opened them the Bad Wolf was gone.

She sat for some time on the beach. The sun was nearly gone, and she was amazed at how long it had apparently taken them to relive that memory. Breathing deeply, she decided that she felt much better than she had after the last visit. Her fears far less than they had been, she left the beach, already eager for the next month.

* * *

AN: If you liked it, take a minute to let me know what I did right; if you disliked it, take a minute to let me know how I can improve.


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